Instrumental and vocal music teachers’ health knowledge and health promotion strategies: consonance and dissonance
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Rationale Music teachers are highly influential in a young musicians’ physical and psychological developing approach to music-making. There has been substantial research on numerous musicians’ health promotion initiatives in education settings, however this has largely focused on students and both pre-tertiary and tertiary music teachers have received comparatively less attention. The importance of engaging teachers in health promotion for students has long been recognised (Brandfonbrener, 1989; Quarrier, 1995; Guptill & Zaza, 2010; Pierce, 2012). Recent research has shown that teachers embed psychological health strategies into teaching practice (Mazzarolo et al., 2023) and are able to use mental skills training (Gill et al., 2022). However, a recent scoping review (Evans et al., 2024) found only two health education interventions for music teachers involving instruction in aspects of musicians’ physical health in over 20 years of research literature. More research is needed to understand how their experience, knowledge and teaching practices influence their role in promoting healthy practice and performance for their students. Purpose This mixed-methods study explored consonances and dissonances between instrumental and vocal music teachers’ perceptions of their roles in promoting students’ health, health promotion strategies, and their knowledge of medical conditions occurring in musicians. Approach An online international mixed method survey of instrumental and vocal music teachers in 15 countries was conducted via Qualtrics. Of 178 respondents, the data of 115 teachers who completed the survey and 35 semi-structured interviews were included in our analysis. Quantitative data were analysed for relationships along with a thematic analysis of text responses. Results 100% of respondents who completed the survey agreed that training in health education as professional development is needed for teachers and should be provided in the workplace. A majority of teachers considered themselves to be most responsible for monitoring students’ performance health (72%), yet only 26% indicated they were able to provide advice or help students manage their performance-related health issues (PRHIs) ‘very well’, with 57% indicating they felt they could do this ‘quite well’ and 17%, ‘not very well’. Up to 86% of teachers were unaware of one or more medical conditions known to occur in musicians. While the proactive approach of most teachers was consonant with their perceptions of having a strong health promotion role, there was dissonance in the ways in which they exercised this perceived responsibility. Limitations & Conclusions Many teacher participants were aware of PHRIs and asserted their role in helping to prevent these in their students, but their knowledge about musicians’ health conditions, how to monitor their students’ health, and strategies they used to support their students’ wellbeing were highly variable. There were differences between teacher groups, though teachers of tertiary-level students were overrepresented in the sample. These dissonances suggest that this important stakeholder group needs targeted health education as professional learning.
Authors: Wijsman, Suzanne; id_orcid 0000-0002-9067-6586, Ackermann, Bronwen
Institution: The University of Sydney
Language: English
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7113252067
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